


Marry Me

by Minako1x2



Series: Tumblr Marvel Prompts [7]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 1973, Angst, Artist Steve Rogers, Bucky's POV, But Sweet, Canon Compliant, Captain America: The First Avenger, For the most part, Love-Making, M/M, Modern times, Oops, Original Characters - Freeform, Period Typical Attitudes, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Steve and Bucky can be happy now, Steve and Bucky just want to be happy, Steve's Pov, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, Wishful Thinking, World War II, but only for the purpose of moving things along, comic compliant, i think, it got a sequel, proposal
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-05
Updated: 2015-11-25
Packaged: 2018-04-03 01:19:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4081009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Minako1x2/pseuds/Minako1x2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What harm will it do?</p><p> </p><p>“Steve.” Bucky says his name like it’s a revelation. A grin spreads over his face, and he shuts the door, locking it before tossing his keys towards the small kitchen table--and misses. He comes straight at Steve, crossing the room in no time at all because their apartment is smaller than a breadbox--or at least that’s what Bucky always says, cursing every time he stubs his toe on something. </p><p>Steve watches him approach, glad he’s already sitting down because when Bucky looks at him like that his knees go weak. And when he leans in close, hands on the back of the couch on either side of Steve’s head, he forgets how to breathe. “You’re back pretty late. The dancin’ musta been good, huh?”</p><p>“Marry me.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Yet another prompt from tumblr. ^_^
> 
> "Marry me." Steve and Bucky. 
> 
> I really really fell in love with this one. So thank you, remington-smisse, for suggesting it <3  
> Also I wrote it in present tense, which I never ever do. So that was fun as well. 
> 
> Marvel owns all. Blah blah blah.

 

Steve knows that sound. That off-beat cadence, the creak of the fifth stair, and the groan of the eighth. He knows the too-loud squeak of the floorboard just outside the door, and the shuffle of feet. The key scrapes against the door, missing the lock half a dozen times before finally finding its way. A curse wafts through the otherwise quiet building, and then the door opens, creaking and scraping and groaning more than the stairs or the floor ever dared to.

It’s been five hours since he left Bucky at the fair. About four hours since Dr. Erskine offered him a chance, and Steve took it. He hasn’t packed yet. Too risky. Bucky would make him change his mind, make him swear not to go. Steve knows Bucky’s heart is in the right place, that he only wants Steve safe, away from the war, away from things that could cause his lungs to seize or his heart to stutter, but it doesn’t change the fact that Steve needs this. Wants it. It will all be all right. Bucky will see. When Steve meets him oversees. Then he’ll understand.

Since arriving home, Steve’s sat on their threadbare couch, sketching and scribbling notes. He’s drawn their kitchen--the off-center sink, and the busted counter top, the icebox and the table with a book under one leg. He’s drawn the door to their bedroom, ajar and lit only dimly by the light he has on in the living room, their bed a shadow, a place where secrets are kept. Even from each other. He’s drawn the window that overlooks the street, and the single lamp, and the radio--

\--He’s drawn Bucky. Bucky as he looked in his uniform that night at the fair. Handsome and perfect and charming; irresistible. No wonder the girls always flocked to his side. Steve had too. He drew the tilt of his hat, and the crooked way he smiled, he drew Bucky’s hands, which knew just how to touch to--

Bucky walks in the door, stumbles, really, his balance left behind either on the dance floor or in a bottle. His jacket is buttoned incorrectly, and his hat is near to falling off, making him look sloppy, but no less handsome. Sometimes Steve looks at him and can’t seem to understand. Can’t grasp the idea that this man, this gorgeous, kind, funny, smart, tough and sweet man sees something in _him,_ in Steve. Steve, who is skinny, and scrawny, and sick more often than not. Who gets into fights in back alleys because he doesn’t know when enough is enough, and because his sense of justice is much too big for the body God or nature saw fit to grace him with.

But he does. And Steve thanks God every day for it. Despite the fact that . . . well, despite _facts._

“Hey, Buck,” Steve says, setting his sketch book in his lap, piling up the pages he’s torn out and left strewn about the couch. “Have a good time?”

Bucky looks at him, those grey eyes flashing for a moment, as if surprised to see Steve sitting there, on their couch, in their apartment. Where else would he be? In bed, maybe. It’s nearly three in the morning, but Steve just couldn’t sleep.

“Steve.” Bucky says his name like it’s a revelation. A grin spreads over his face, and he shuts the door, locking it before tossing his keys towards the small kitchen table--and missing. He comes straight at Steve, crossing the room in no time at all because their apartment is smaller than a breadbox--or at least that’s what Bucky always says, cursing every time he stubs his toe on something.

Steve watches him approach, glad he’s already sitting down because when Bucky looks at him like that his knees go weak. And when he leans in close, hands on the back of the couch on either side of Steve’s head, he forgets how to breathe. “You’re back pretty late. The dancin’ musta been good, huh?”

“Marry me.”

“What?”

“Marry me, Stevie.”

Okay, so he had heard right. “You drunk, Buck?” The answer is obvious, but sometimes Bucky needs the reminder, needs to admit it to himself before Steve can talk some sense into him and get him into bed.

“Not drunk. Barely been drinkin’ at all.” And then he’s kissing Steve, pressing him into the couch, getting a knee on the cushions between Steve’s thighs. He tastes like alcohol; like beer and maybe gin or vodka. It’s hard to tell, and not just because Steve’s head swims whenever Bucky gets his mouth on him. Steve moans into the kiss, half to call Bucky out on his lie, half because words are too hard to find. “Marry me,” Bucky says again, breaking their kiss, but not removing his lips from Steve’s.

Bucky leaves in the morning. Ships out. Got his orders. Sergeant James Barnes, 107th. He’ll go across the ocean, to fight the war, to put his life at risk for his country and for strangers he’s never met, but who deserve the help. Ever since he enlisted, Bucky’s been calm. Went to basic, trained, came back, told Steve a few stories. _Not all it’s cracked up to be, Steve. Not so bad though. Could be worse, I suppose. Nice to be good at something other than hauling crates at the docks._

But now all Steve sees is terror. A nightmare in those stormy grey eyes. A desperation to do or say anything that will make tomorrow different, or never come.

He knows Bucky well enough that he doesn’t have to say it. But still, it hurts to see. “Bucky . . .”

“Don’t bother arguin’. Just say yes. Marry me, Stevie. When I get back. You and me.”

It’s a fantasy. A dream. A story they couldn’t even find in a book or write down themselves. A secret, a shadow, a truth hidden behind lie after lie. They cover the truth with lies. They live together because it’s more affordable. Not because they wouldn’t know how to live apart. They share one bed because it's warmer for Steve in the winter, and how the hell would they afford a second one anyway?

But the lies are always for other people. For the outside world. Not for them. Not for themselves. They don’t lie to each other. Not about this.

And now . . .

Steve wants it. He can taste the words on his tongue, but he can’t seem to make them come out . . .

Bucky’s kissing his neck now, nibbling at his pulse, at the place just behind his ear, the edge of his jaw. Steve melts under his ministrations, his own hands clinging to Bucky’s back, hating the thick fabric of his uniform not just because it’s a physical barrier between him and his lover’s body, but because of what it stands for, for what it means the morning will bring.

“I’ll get us a house. A real one, with rooms bigger than broom closets, not like this shithole. And a back yard, and a dog. You’d like that, right, Steve? A dog? We’ll get a dog. Some stray you’ll find on the street, no doubt. Give it a good home. That sound good, Stevie?” He’s got his hands under Steve’s shirt now, pushing it up, out of his way, fingers mapping out familiar paths, lips following. Steve tips his head back against the couch, breathing deep when Bucky mouths the hollow of his stomach, then his too-prominent ribs.

It sounds wonderful. It sounds perfect.

It sounds impossible.

But Bucky just continues, hands and lips and teeth taking Steve apart bit by bit. “Maybe we can even get a cook, yeah? I’ll climb the ranks quick enough, get a good promotion, a nice place with good pay. Just enough to be able to have someone cook us a real meal now and then, not beans and stew and whatever else we always throw together. That would be good. Regular meals. You probably wouldn’t get sick so often. Not to mention the good it would do us both to have some fresh air.”

Steve takes off Bucky’s hat, setting is aside so he can comb through the other man’s hair with his fingers. Bucky’s words are painting such a picture in his head, better than anything Steve ever could have drawn with charcoal and paper.

“It’ll be just you and me, Stevie,” Bucky says, undoing the buttons of Steve’s pants and pulling them out of his way with a careful lift of Steve’s hips. He kisses each hipbone in turn, then nuzzles the inside of his thigh. “A nice house, a dog, good food. You and me, all alone without no one to bother us.” He draws his fingers along the curve of Steve’s hip. “Unless you want someone else? You want kids, Steve? I think you’d like that. And I’d be fucking great with ‘em. I’m great with kids, ain’t I, Steve? Maybe we go down to the orphanage and give some of ‘em a home, yeah? Find a tiny scrappy one like you. I’d like that. Tinier little you running around. What do you think?”

What does he think? He thinks his heart is breaking, because Bucky is perfect. Fucking perfect. And everything he says sounds perfect, is perfect, and he wants it. Wants to give this dream to Bucky, to himself, but . . .

“Give you everything, Steve. Spend my whole life givin’ you whatever you want, making you feel good. S’all I want. For you to feel good.”

Bucky stops kissing everywhere else then, and takes Steve in his mouth. Steve gasps, hand flying up to cover his mouth and muffle the sounds he wishes he could let out in earnest. But he can’t. He has to be quiet, to keep this just between them. He squeezes his eyes shut, blocking out the world, shutting out reality and leaving only Bucky in his existence.

He doesn’t last long. Bucky is too good, knows him too well, and all the talk has brought Steve closer to the edge of something he didn’t even really know existed before. A precipice he now understands he and Bucky have always been in danger of falling over.

He doesn’t realize he’s been crying until Bucky is kissing away his tears.

“Stevie, baby, don’t cry. Don’t cry. God, Steve.” He kisses him, and Steve kisses back, tasting himself on Bucky’s lips--evidence of everything they constantly need to hide. “Just say yes, Steve. S’just you and me here. Say yes. Say yes. Say yes.” He punctuates each with another passionate kiss.

Steve touches his face, holds him close, and the lump in his throat dislodges when he feels the damp tracks trailing down Bucky’s own cheeks.

What harm will it do?

“Yes.”

He says it, and then they say nothing more. Nothing until the morning comes, and Bucky has no choice but to leave, can stretch time no longer, and they must both give in. They say goodbye as friends, cuffing one another on the shoulder. Calling each other “punk” and “jerk.” As always, no one is any the wiser.

And when Steve finally packs his own things, and gets on the train to Jersey, to Camp Lehigh, to his one chance to meet Bucky overseas (he doesn’t let himself think how it could be his only chance to see Bucky one last time) he takes out his sketchpad, and begins to draw:

A house. One with a yard, and a dog, and three people, two grown, one still small.

What harm will it do? What could it hurt?

He tears the picture from the book as the train pulls into the station, folds it up, and tucks it into his jacket pocket. He’ll keep it there, by his heart, where he keeps Bucky, and all their truths. Even the ones hidden by shadows, dreams and sometimes even lies.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In 1944 Bucky asked Steve a question.
> 
> If he asks again now, after everything that's happened, will the answer be any different?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm prefacing this by reminding you all that you asked for this one. ^_~
> 
> I was totally going to do it anyway though. <3
> 
>  
> 
> (Marvel owns all, as usual. Actually....I guess Disney owns all...)

Bucky knows he shouldn’t. He knows, and yet . . . he’s only a man. He can only resist so long.

Especially now that he remembers.

Steve was never private with his drawings; not all of them. He’d let Bucky watch over his shoulder from time to time, or leave sketchbooks out on their wobbly table where Bucky could flip through at his leisure. But there were always a few--a select few that Steve hid. Sketchbooks he always put away carefully, or would clutch to his chest if Bucky came home unexpectedly, drawings torn out and folded up, shoved into the rip in their mattress.

Bucky knew about them.

Sometimes he peeked.

The first time, he’d been angry with Steve. Having just patched him up yet again after yet another righteous back-alley squabble, Bucky was fed up enough with that little shit and his tendency to give Bucky nightmares (funny, even after all he’d been through, seventy years later, he could still think of them that way) that he’d completely disregarded any amount of decency when he saw the forbidden sketchbook sticking out from the back of their closet.

Most of the drawings were of him--sleeping, nude, perhaps images captured from memory or sight after one of the many times they had “kept warm” together in the night, silent and gasping. Pieces of their life that could never see the light of day. He should have been angry that Steve had documented it. If found, by anyone other than Bucky, it could have meant the end.

But it hadn’t strengthened his anger. It had, instead, washed it all away.

Bucky had his own outlets for the frustration of their situation. How could he honestly, without being a hypocrite, deny Steve his?

Not every sketch was of Bucky as God had made him though. Some were different, less risqué but still just as dangerous. Two hands joined together, the streets of Brooklyn all around, with people passing by without a care. Two silhouettes sitting together on a bench in the park, close enough to touch, one with his arm slung around a pair of slighter, skinny shoulders.

Always two. Always in public.

Impossible things. Things they couldn’t have.

It was then Bucky had realized that Steve didn’t just draw from life, he drew from dreams. And despite wanting to respect Steve’s privacy, despite _trying,_ he really did, there were some days when Bucky needed those dreams, that hope, for himself.

And so he peeked.

Now, he wants to peek again.

Since returning--returning to himself, returning to the world, returning to _Steve_ \--Bucky has been piecing himself back together bit by broken bit. Yeah, there are still a few pieces missing; memories he may never get back, may never see again, but he’s realized recently that he can replace them. If he can’t have them back, then he’ll make new memories. Better ones, maybe. Good ones, at the very least.

There’s one room in their Brooklyn apartment (an apartment ten times the size of what they had back in the 30’s) that Steve has claimed. He goes there to paint, to draw, to get away. It’s an unspoken thing, that Bucky never goes in. It’s not like Steve has forbidden him. Bucky just noticed--noticed that Steve went there when he needed to be alone, or to quiet his mind. Sometimes he leaves the door ajar, but mostly, he closes it.

But today, something’s been nagging at the back of Bucky’s mind all day. Something that keeps slipping through his proverbial fingers, always just out of reach. This happens sometimes, usually before new memories show up.

It’s frustrating.

And Steve isn’t home.

If Steve was home, Bucky would use him as a distraction. Ask questions until he had Steve lost in stories of their youth, or pin him to their bed until the only thing Bucky could think about was his smell, his taste, his touch, and the only word left to Steve was Bucky’s name.

Bucky needs a distraction. Needs answers. And Steve left the door open, only a few inches, but enough that Bucky can see inside, see the new paintings in the shadows.

He sort of trips, knocking into the door, causing it to open further.

And stands in the doorway, awestruck, unable to move.

The room is full of memories, of the past. Steve has painted their life together, from childhood onward, in such bright and clear detail that Bucky almost wonders if they’re real--If Steve had somehow found a way to reach into the past and pluck moments out, bring them here, to the future, to the now. But, god--Steve was good. Really good. Better than Bucky remembered him being, and Bucky remembered being fucking floored by that kid’s talent.

He makes his way around the room, examining each painting, each charcoal drawing, matching the images to the half-formed memories he possessed. Fireworks on the Fourth of July, two boys sitting on the beach at Coney Island. A cake from the bakery down the block that Bucky had saved for weeks in order to buy, never telling Steve what it had cost him. A couple of busted lips and black eyes mocked by the grins that laughed so clearly Bucky would swear he could hear them. The grocer on the corner, and the street where they had played ball as kids, the school where they had met in the yard, one boy picking up a fight that hadn’t been his, but had felt right. Bucky had never regretted that black eye, that lost tooth. Steve Rogers had been worth it. Is worth it. He’d do it again and again. Had, in some ways.

It’s one of his most precious memories. The day they met. For so long it had alluded him, taunted him, tormented him, the dark threat that he would never get it back looming. Bucky loves to replay that moment in his mind for himself now. It makes him feel strong, complete.

Apparently Steve treasures that memory too. In the far corner of the room, hanging on the wall for display and not just storage, is that school yard, children playing all around, while two boys shook hands for the first time.

Bucky is hard pressed to tear himself away from that one. But there are still more to see.

A new one, probably only just finished, still sitting upon the easel at the side of the room where the natural light is best. A house, out in the country, with a green yard all around, lined by a white picket fence. A dog, a Labrador maybe, chocolate brown and sleek, bounds through that open space, chasing after a yellow ball that has rolled towards the back.

There are people in the painting as well. One tall and broad, dark hair cut short and slicked back, shoulders lined by the white shirt and suspenders. The left arm is obscured, but the right hand is tucked into the waist of his pants, and his head is thrown back in laughter. Bucky hasn’t seen that expression in some time, but Steve is good, Bucky can still tell--can recognize his own face. The second man is shorter, slighter, blond and pale, but beautiful and perfect. He stands close beside the first man, looking up at him, his back turned so that Bucky and any other viewer will never see his face.

And there’s a third. Small, young, arms and legs gangly and off balance as she chases after the dog, her skirt muddied from her fun.

Bucky’s heart aches looking at her, like he should know her, her name, her age, her loves and her fears. Instead his mind supplies him with nothing. Nothing at all. He almost reaches out to touch--but can smell the still wet paint, and doesn’t take the chance of ruining her. Ruining any of it.

_“It’ll be just you and me, Stevie. A nice house, a dog, good food. You and me, all alone without no one to bother us.” He draws his fingers along the curve of Steve’s hip. “Unless you want someone else? You want kids, Steve? I think you’d like that. And I’d be fucking great with ‘em. I’m great with kids, ain’t I, Steve? Maybe we go down to the orphanage and give some of ‘em a home, yeah? Find a tiny scrappy one like you. I’d like that. Tinier little you running around. What do you think?”_

The memory hits suddenly--as they often do--and Bucky steps back, fighting the wave of vertigo that comes over him. He turns to leave, to flee the room, to get somewhere he can think, he can sit, where he can wait out whatever memory is about to flood his mind, alter his understanding of the life he once lived--

And sees Steve, standing in the doorway.

Steve, real and large, and handsome and brave, and just as reckless as he was the first day Bucky met him, standing there now, his face pale, his expression fearful. He swallows. “H-hey, Buck.”

“Hey, Stevie.”

“You, ah . . . What are you doing in here?”

Shit. That’s right. Bucky had all but forgotten that he was snooping. Invading Steve’s privacy. “Just, ah-- The door was open and . . .” He glances about the room once more, avoiding Steve’s gaze, settling once more on the school yard back in the 20’s. “These are really good, Steve.”

Making Steve blush had always been a favorite pastime of his. Still is. “Thanks,” he says, bashful and quiet. “I find painting and drawing helps me remember.”

“Like you could actually forget.”

“I’m afraid I’ll forget.”

It’s a real fear, for most people. Bucky has gone with Steve once to visit Peggy. Only once. It was nice to see her, but--It had been too hard. Too hard to watch someone lose their memories while he scraped and clawed for every last one of his own. He knows what it feels like to reach for something and come up empty handed.

“I think the serum has your memory pretty well locked down.”

“I can hope so. Yours repairs well enough.”

Leave it to Steve to turn this all around. “Not like this. Even what I do have--not details like this.” He gestures to the paintings, returning to the one of the grocer. “I mean, I look at these and it’s like stepping back in time. I didn’t remember that sign on the door, the color of the paint, but when I see it here, it all comes back.”

“I didn’t know. I just--I don’t know why I hide them. You can come in and see them, Buck. Any time you want. If it helps you remember.”

Bucky walks through the room, following the wall, looking over the paintings he missed his first time through. There’s one of Sarah Rogers, young and vibrant and just as beautiful as Bucky remembers her. But he isn’t really taking Steve up on his offer, not yet. He’s making his way back to the easel, working up the courage.

“Not all of these are memories, Steve.”

He can practically hear the other man stop breathing.

“This one,” Bucky continues, once more standing in front of the house with the fence and the dog. “This one isn’t a memory.”

“Not exactly,” Steve says. “But . . . in a way it is.”

“I remember,” Bucky starts, but has to stop and start again. The memory is clawing at him, trying to come back, but tearing his mind at the same time. “I remember something. Saying something?”

He can’t see Steve, he has his back to him, but he can hear the strain in his voice. “Yeah. Yeah, Buck. You said something. Once. Just once.”

_“Just say yes, Steve. S’just you and me here. Say yes.”_

He can remember the heat of Steve’s body, even in the dead of night--he should have been colder. He remembers the taste of alcohol mixing with Steve’s skin, and the pleasure that shot through him when Steve made those tiny, repressed sounds.

He’d wanted something then.

He wants something now.

It’s a wonderful thing--wanting. Bucky wants.

He wants what he’s always wanted.

“I asked you something.”

“You did.”

“You didn’t want to answer.”

“The answer was all I ever wanted, Buck.”

He turns to face Steve. He needs to see his face, see the truth there behind the words. He’d asked all those decades ago. He’d asked, and Steve had eventually answered, but--“It wasn’t real then.”

“It was real to me.” Steve’s always been a terrible liar. He looks all the wrong places, and there’s a little twitch to his jaw. There’s no lie on Steve’s face now.

“It could be real now.” He’s read things. Seen things. People are different now. The world is different. Sometimes he hates it, the way things have changed. Other times . . .

“It could.”

“So if I asked you again--” Bucky leaves the painting at the easel, walks across the room to the doorway. All the while he remembers more and more, the rough fabric of the couch scratching his hands, the stiffness of the cushions beneath his knee, the ease with which he could slip the clothes from Steve’s lithe body.

“My answer would be the same.”

There had been tears that night. From both of them. He hadn’t meant to make Steve cry. Hadn’t meant to bring any more darkness to that night than it already had. Their last night together. Or what he thought would be. Shipping out was a death sentence, everyone knew that. Bucky had never imagined he would be any different. He’d left Steve at the fair, unable to watch as his best friend (his lover, his family, his world) had once more tried to strong arm himself into a war he had no place being in. Never before had Bucky ever been so glad for Steve’s ailments--that Steve had no strong arm to work with. What had threatened to tear them apart every winter, every virus, every sniffle, was suddenly the one thing that would keep Steve _safe_. He’d gone dancing, and tried to forget what the morning would bring.

No amount of alcohol, no amount of pretty smiles, and colorful skirts, did anything to alleviate his one worst fear:

When he went home that night, it would be his last night with Steve. Ever.

He’d gone home with the intention of making the most of each moment, of showering Steve with love and affection--enough, he hoped, to last the rest of Steve’s lifetime. Enough so Steve would know, even when Bucky was gone, how much he had meant to him, how much Bucky loved him--even if the whole world insisted it was wrong.

The world was wrong. Not them. Bucky had always been certain of that.

And now here they are. More than seventy years later.

So much has changed.

“Do you still want it?” he asks, sliding up to Steve, wrapping his metal arm around his waist, pulling him close and already refusing to let go. He brushes their lips together, noses bumping lightly. “Do you still want that, Steve?”

Steve lets out a breath that sends a tremble through his entire body. “I want you, Bucky.”

With his flesh hand Bucky can feel the line of Steve’s jaw, the curve of his throat. “Do you want _that_? What you painted, is that what you want?”

“I want you. Anything else is--I want you, whatever you want to give me.”

“Want to give you everything, Stevie. That’s never changed.”

He sees it in Steve’s eyes, those blue eyes that have never faded even with everything that’s happened, he sees that Steve recognizes his words for what they are. A memory. “Then ask me again.”

Steve’s never been a good liar. It’s why Bucky always did what he did--chased skirts, made himself a reputation--anything to throw off suspicion. The one thing Steve was always the worst at hiding, was how he felt about Bucky Barnes. That night, that night so long ago that was burned out of him, and now clawed its way back, there had been no lies between them. Sure, it had been a fantasy, a dream meant to give them both something to hang onto in the coming months, something that never would have come true . . . but it was still the truth.

Bucky had asked because he had thought he was about to die.

He had died. But now he was back. Back from the dead, and in a new world where dreams and paintings didn’t have to be kept hidden in the shadows.

They didn’t have to hide.

“Marry me.”

“Yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well? Do you need more cookies? More Bucky Bears? This should make things a little better, yes?
> 
>  
> 
> I'm [here on Tumblr](www.katewmartin.tumblr.com) if you want to say hi! ^_^


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In 1973 after completing a mission on American soil, the asset known as code name: Winter Soldier went rogue. 
> 
> He was found more than two weeks later in a flophouse in the Lower East side of New York with no memory of what had transpired during his time off the grid. 
> 
> Or at least . . . that's what he told them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one got away from me.   
> It's twice as long as the other chapters, but...ah well. 
> 
> This part actually takes place BEFORE chapter two. But since I wrote it third, it's "chapter three." Maybe someday I'll rearrange them into chronological order.  
> I had the idea for this part for a while now, but it took some time to get it to come together. At first, I thought the ending was going to be different than how it turned out. Regardless . . .
> 
> I'm sorry.

The soldier waits, the pool water slowing, stilling around the floating body. One last bubble beaks the surface, and then no more. There’s a broken glass at the edge of the staircase, a puddle of wine that could easily be slipped on. A single blow to the head, most likely from a fall. The senator was already unconscious when he entered the water. Drowning was inevitable.

The soldier had made sure of it.

Death confirmed. Appearing accidental. Mission complete.

Rendezvous at extraction point A expected in forty-seven minutes.

The soldier doesn’t report. There’s something about this place . . . something he can’t name, something he can’t put a finger on. He knows this, and yet he doesn’t. He wanders the city--Dallas--taking in the sights, the people. There are buildings that reach for the sky, and that calls to him. Just like the smell of gasoline and the buzz of people walking up and down the sidewalks. The women wear pants that bell at the bottom, and the men sport wide lapels and drive loud and muscled cars. It’s different, and yet . . .

The year is 1973. The soldier doesn’t know why, but that bothers him. Time had never bothered him before. A group of teens scurry past as he wanders the city, chattering on and laughing in English. The soldier speaks English. He speaks a lot of languages. But . . . He can’t remember the last time he heard the language. Not counting the pleading the senator did only hours before. The sun is going down. He passes a bar, and the smell of alcohol rides the air. A pair of men shuffle out the door, stumbling and hanging onto one another. They bump into the soldier, and he clamps down on every instinct he has to strike back. Not on a mission. Do not engage. Do not draw attention. These men are inebriated. Compromised. They mean no harm. They are not targets. They are just--

_“You drunk, Buck?”_

The voice rattles through his head, deep and lower than one would expect coming from--Coming from what? The soldier shakes his head, the unwanted voice a physical pain. He’s malfunctioning, probably. There shouldn’t be voices in his head. Especially voices he can’t identify. Calling him names that--

\--Calling him a name.

The soldier doesn’t have a name. He is the asset. Codename: Winter Soldier.

He’s on a train. Though he doesn’t know why, doesn’t know what made him head towards the station, buy a ticket, get on and take a seat with his bag still slung over his shoulder. They’re heading towards Chicago. Chicago is closer. Closer to what, he isn’t sure. But he knows it’s closer than Dallas.

A woman sits beside him, on his left. He knows well enough to hide his arm. The metal makes people nervous. Most people don’t have metal arms. But he’s wearing a glove, and a jacket, so she smiles at him as she sits, kind and friendly. “Hey there,” she says. “I’m Maggie. Might as well get to know each other with the ride being so long, don’t you think?”

He nods, hoping that’s the correct response.

Maggie giggles. “Gonna tell me your name, handsome?”

Handsome? The soldier catches a glimpse of his reflection in the window. He supposes . . . maybe. His hair is a little longer than the last time he remembers seeing it, and there’s a shadow over his face since he hasn’t bothered to take the time to shave since before his last mission. He doesn’t know about handsome, pretty, good-looking. He’s efficient, effective. That’s what matters. But if she thinks he’s handsome, then that’s all right. Attractiveness can make people pliable, amiable.

Maggie is still smiling, her lips painted red--red like a striking dress he’d once seen . . . --her long brown hair done up and accented with a colorful scarf. “No? I could make one up for you, if you like.”

The name flies from his lips. He doesn’t know where it comes from. The soldier has no name, though he’s used various as covers. This one has never been used before, and he likes it, likes the sound of it on his lips, but the moment he says it, he also knows it’s wrong.

He’s not Steve. Steve is . . .

“Steve,” Maggie says. “Good name. Glad to meet ya. So what has you heading for Chicago?”

Speaking hurts. He doesn’t do it much. Not outside mission reports. There’s no need to speak to targets. He feels like he should do something, smile, lean back in the seat at an angle . . . something. Act in a way that would put Maggie at ease, charm her, maybe even get her to agree to dance.

But he doesn’t know why. And he doesn’t know how to dance.

“Not Chicago,” is all he says.

“Well, I hope Chicago is at least on the way then, otherwise you’re on the wrong train.”

She reaches out, placing a hand on his left arm. The soldier jerks away. “Don’t.”

Maggie retracts her hand. “Sorry. Just thought . . . well.” She folds her hands in her lap, smiles at him again, but it’s not the same. The light has left her expression.

She doesn’t matter. Only one person matters. Only . . . He stares out the window, watching the world go by at an incredible speed. It’s warm out, enough for only a light coat and or even nothing at all. But it’s March. It should be cold. Too cold. Cold enough to make lungs seize, and let infections in. It would be cold elsewhere. He has to get warm, keep warm, help keep _him_ warm . . .

“Hey, are you sure you’re all right?” The girl, Maggie, her voice sounds tense. That familiar thread of fear creeping in. The soldier knows that sound. He also knows the creek of metal, and makes himself release his too tight grip on the contents of his bag. The arm whirrs, but the sound is swallowed up by the constant rhythm of the train.

“I’m fine,” he says, hoping it will dissuade her from speaking any more. Two men in the seats in front of him have started up a heated conversation concerning the nation’s politics. Movements, and scandals, and troubled youth, music and drugs. They bicker over it all, and the recent reelection of President Nixon.

The soldier doesn’t know who that is. Roosevelt is president. Has been since 1933 . . .

One of the men brandishes a newspaper as he argues, and the soldier plucks it from his soft fingers with no trouble at all, his bag falling from his lap.

March 12, 1973.

No. No, that wasn’t right.

“Why does it say this?” the soldier demands, standing now, towering over the seats and the men who occupied them. Their protests die off, their anger for the stolen paper gone under the gaze of the Winter Soldier. He knows what men look like when they cower before him, and this is little different. But he doesn’t care. He needs to know. He points to the date, making sure the men can see. “Why?”

One man, round and grey with age, answers him with a puzzled look. “It’s today’s paper, son. What else would it say?”

Today’s paper.

“No,” the soldier says. “It’s nineteen forty--” Forty-what? He has no answer, and there’s a pain growing behind his eyes. An ache that makes it hard to think, hard to focus. It’s nineteen forty--his thoughts stump again--and it’s March, and it should be cold, and he has to get home, has to get warm.

Another man has joined the small crowd that now surrounds the soldier; younger, though his eyes seem to speak of things one should never see. Military. A soldier. Like him. Nothing like him. It makes him edgy, these people. Maggie, young and naïve. The old man, and his thin but equally grey companion, their friendly bickering gone in this new confusion, replaced instead by a steady and unwavering air of support. Friendship. It makes the soldier’s chest hurt.

“Everything okay?” the young military man asks, taking Maggie by the elbow and guiding her out of the seat--away from the soldier. His voice is calm, friendly. The soldier has nothing to say. He stares at the paper, unable to make sense of it. Unable to make sense of anything. “Just get back?” the young man asks, trying a different approach.

“Back?” The soldier looks at him, the question catching him off guard--gets a good look at him for the first time.

And feels his heart drop down to his feet.

Blond, blue eyes. Muscles from war, and a kind, patient look. He’d seen that look before. Once. After. After he’d been taken from the table, trudged through forests and decimated towns. After he--

“Steve.”

The young man blinks. “Steve?”

“That’s his name,” Maggie says.

“It’s not my name.”

“Okay,” the young man says, voice still even and steady. “Okay. What is your name then?”

The soldier thinks. The soldier says nothing. He knows nothing. His mind is a jumble of images, none of them matching up. A small apartment. A broken table. Ratty clothes, worn and mended too many times. A tiny boy with a split lip and missing teeth. A man, grown but still small, knuckles bloody and expression determined. That same man, taller, stronger, an angel born out of his nightmares. A touch, soft, gentle . . .

“All right, don’t force it. You’re okay,” the young man says, hands visible, illustrating the lack of threat. “You just get back from Vietnam?”

Vietnam. A war. Not his war. But he had been there. He’d been to every war. His life is war.

The soldier thinks maybe he nods to this.

“All right. Me too.”

The soldier doubts they’ve actually come from the same war.

“My name’s John. Why don’t you come sit by me? I’ll help you sort things out, all right?” His hand is outstretched. An offer. An invitation. The soldier wants to take that hand, even as his instinct is to tense, to prepare to either defend or take a blow. But it’s not him. It’s not him. It’s not the hand he wants. It’s not him. It’s not him. It’s not him.

And he doesn’t know who _him_ is.

“No.” He thinks maybe he mutters an ‘excuse me’ as well, because that’s the polite thing to do, the normal thing, the correct thing. Blend. Don’t draw attention. The soldier shoulders his way out of the seat, dragging his bag along behind him. He has to get away. Away from these people. These people who have friendships, and smiles, and blue eyes. He thinks he hears something about “shell shock” as he puts distance between himself and these strange people--trying to put distance between himself and the things he’s feeling.

The train rumbles beneath him, around him, wreaking havoc on his balance. He clutches the back of an empty seat, and scrubs his flesh hand across his face . . .

And then he’s in Chicago, looking up at a bus, a ticket held tightly in his hand.

“You’re almost home,” someone says, and when he looks the soldier sees that it’s John from the train. The military man. John is smiling, though his blue eyes look worried. “The bus will get you back to your family, all right? You’ll feel better once you’re with them. Let them take care of you.”

Home. He’s not sure he knows what that is. It sounds nice. The bus has a lighted sign above the windshield. It reads: NEW YORK.

That sounds right.

With a handshake from John, the soldier boards the bus, taking a seat in the back--in the shadows, where he can see the door, and all windows and exits. He places his bag on the seat beside him, and this time no one attempts to join him. This makes him feel . . . better. He doesn’t want another incident like the one on the train, doesn’t need people asking questions, wanting to know things he doesn’t know himself. But it also makes him feel worse. _He_ should be in that seat. _He_ should be beside him.

And the soldier still doesn’t know who _he_ is.

On the bus he sleeps. He dreams. He knows he dreams while in cryo, he holds onto enough to know that it happens, that sometimes when they thaw him, he thrashes, struggles, trying to claw his way back to god-knows where--but then they wipe him, and it all disappears. The wipes are thorough. The most he is ever left with is a vague knowledge, a ghost of a feeling, like a shadow that shifts, intangible, unknowable.

Now, he dreams, and when he wakes, he will still remember.

_“Buck.” The smaller boy’s breath hitches, that single word catching in his throat. There are tears rolling down his cheeks, yet they aren’t sad. Sad is too simple a word to describe what the both of them feel here in his small room, on this tattered couch, clothes pushed aside, and the taste of alcohol between them._

_“Stevie, baby, don’t cry. Don’t cry. God, Steve.” He kisses him, and the other boy kisses back, tasting himself on Bucky’s lips--evidence of everything they constantly need to hide. “Just say yes, Steve. S’just you and me here. Say yes. Say yes. Say yes.” He punctuates each with another passionate kiss._

_The boy touches his face, holds him close, and his fingers slide across cheekbones, slick from the tears that have come from the soldier’s own eyes._

_He wants this. He needs this. There was a question, a question he had asked a million times in his mind, but never out loud. Never out loud. It was too dangerous, too impossible, but alcohol and desperation have made him brave, and he doesn’t care what else happens, as long as he gets the answer._

_Tomorrow, everything will change._

_Tomorrow he’ll go to war. And he’ll never come back. He knows it. Feels it in his bones. He wants to give Steve everything--and yet he can give him nothing at all. Only this. Only a memory he can keep safe, keep in his heart, think about long after the war has parted them. It’s not much, but it’s all he can afford._

The bus stops, and the soldier wakes. There are real tears on his cheeks, and he wipes them away as he exits, stepping out into the city air. It smells familiar. It smells right. This is the right place. He shoulders his bag and starts walking. He doesn’t need directions.

Steve is here. Somewhere. Steve will have the answers. Steve will know who he is. It’s colder here, like he expected. The soldier doesn’t mind, doesn’t really feel the bite of the winter air, but the city-dwellers walking all around him have thick winter coats, scarves, hats. Steve will be cold. The soldier remembers the harsh sound of a cough, the kind that turns into a fit that leaves the throat raw, the chest aching. His own chest aches at the thought.

There’s an apartment building. He doesn’t remember the street names, but he doesn’t need to look at the signs to know he’s right. The windows are the same, the pattern of the fire escapes. The soldier climbs the stairs, glances at the ground where once a brick sat (but sits no more) and let’s himself in. He doesn’t need a key.

It’s just as it was in his dream. Ratty couch, unbalanced kitchen table, the lamp with the torn shade, and the faded curtains that let the sunlight filter in. There are sketch books strewn about, and a coffee pot on the stove. A small pile of books has been stacked beside the couch, and the soldier knows their titles without looking. _The Body in the Library_ , by Agatha Christie. _Frankenstein_ , by Mary Shelley. _The Time Machine,_ by H.G. Wells.

Someone has put ropes around the room. They create barriers between the world and this place, this memory. The soldier steps right over them. He has to get to the couch. Kneels in front of it, his hands reaching out for something that’s not there . . .

_He’s kissing Steve’s neck, nibbling at his pulse, at the place just behind his ear, the edge of his jaw. Steve melts under his ministrations, his own hands clinging to the soldier’s back--only he wasn’t the soldier then, he was . . . he doesn’t know who he was. He does know that he hates the thick fabric of his uniform not just because it’s a physical barrier between him and his lover’s body, but because of what it stands for, for what it means the morning will bring._

_“I’ll get us a house. A real one, with rooms bigger than broom closets, not like this shithole. And a backyard, and a dog. You’d like that, right, Steve? A dog? We’ll get a dog. Some stray you’ll find on the street, no doubt. Give it a good home. That sound good, Stevie?” He slides his hands under Steve’s shirt, pushing it up, out of his way, fingers mapping out familiar paths, lips following. God, he loves Steve’s body; so small, so delicate, so perfect. Every scar is a testament to the strength that hides there, and he kisses each one, worshiping Steve the way he deserves. Steve tips his head back against the couch, breathing deep when the soldier mouths the hollow of his stomach, then his too-prominent ribs._

Steve isn’t here. The couch is bare, as bare as the threads holding it together. The soldier leaves it behind, moving about the apartment, searching, hoping. The stove is cold. The washroom bone dry. The sketch books are crinkling with age and faded, like they’ve been left out, exposed to the elements for far too long. The soldier flips through the pages, drawings of hands, and cityscapes, birds in the park, and strangers on the street. There are pictures of one man, over and over again. Smiling, laughing, smoking, serious, and asleep. The soldier thinks this face is somewhat familiar, perhaps even similar to his own . . . but when he goes to the mirror to compare, his own eyes are dark and dull. Dead. Nothing like the light that has been captured in the sketches of the other man. Setting the sketch book back where he found it, the soldier fingers the evidence of a torn out page, forces himself to move on.

The creak of a floorboard is the first thing that alerts him to the presence of another human being.

The second is her perfume, then the quick gasp when she first sees him. She does not read as a threat, so the soldier does not reach for his gun.

“Oh!” she says. “I’m so sorry. I just stepped out for a moment. I could have sworn I locked up.”

“What is this place?” The soldier’s voice is rough, and he feels an unfamiliar tightness in his throat.

“What is--You mean you don’t know?” The girl is young. Perhaps just out of school. Her glasses are a bright red, and her dress is blue. “Most people who come here know exactly what this is.”

“Tell me.”

He must be frightening her, she stays by the door, her hands folded and wringing in front of her. “This is the apartment of Captain America, Steve Rogers. He lived here with Sergeant James Barnes before the war. It’s sort of a museum now.”

Steve Rogers. James Barnes.

His head hurts.

“Where is Steve now?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Steve. Where is he?”

The girl shakes her head, taking another step back. “I don’t understand. Captain Rogers died in the war, sir.”

The soldier sits on a bed. There’s blood on his hands. Judging by the scrapes along his flesh knuckles, he’s pretty sure it’s his own. But he doesn’t remember anything since the apartment. The room he currently occupies is filled with beds, and men. A flophouse. A quick assessment suggests that the soldier has bathed somewhat recently--though clearly not since the incident that resulted in the bloody knuckles. His metal arm is scraped and scratched as well. Not an easy feat. His head feels fuzzy. He’s lost time. He doesn’t know how much.

Steve is dead.

He failed.

Nothing else matters now.

A man across the room has been staring at him. The soldier stares right back. Daring him to make a move. The man leaves, but as soon as he’s in the hall, the soldier can hear him call someone.

Not long after the room is flooded with New York Policemen.

Only the soldier knows they aren’t police at all. They are H.Y.D.R.A.

He resists, but he isn’t sure why. It shouldn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. The soldier knows very little about himself, but he knows one thing. One thing.

He loved Steve Rogers.

And Steve is dead.

He is a hollow shell. Scraped clean more effectively than any wipe. As he sits, restrained in the back of a van, the memories start to come more easily. The tiny apartment, filled with laughter and music and dancing. Steve never had been very good at dancing. The soldier--or whoever he had been--had learned to live with bruised toes. He’d loved it. Just as he’d loved curling around a smaller body in the dead of winter, sharing warmth and breath and comfort. The fingers of his flesh hand tingled with the memory of pale skin, soft blond hair. He could trace the knobby curve of a spine even now, and the hollow of hip bones.

_“It’ll be just you and me, Stevie,” Bucky says, undoing the buttons of Steve’s pants and pulling them out of his way with a careful lift of Steve’s hips. He kisses each hipbone in turn, then nuzzles the inside of his thigh. “A nice house, a dog, good food. You and me, all alone without no one to bother us.” He draws his fingers along the curve of Steve’s hip. “Unless you want someone else? You want kids, Steve? I think you’d like that. And I’d be fucking great with ‘em. I’m great with kids, ain’t I, Steve? Maybe we go down to the orphanage and give some of ‘em a home, yeah? Find a tiny scrappy one like you. I’d like that. Tinier little you running around. What do you think?”_

_He wants. He wants so badly. With war and death staring him in the face, all he wants is a life with Steve. A life they can’t have. He wipes his tears from his face on the fabric of Steve’s pants._

_“Give you everything, Steve. Spend my whole life givin’ you whatever you want, making you feel good. S’all I want. For you to feel good.”_

The soldier can’t remember what it means to feel good. He thinks maybe that warmth that creeps over him whenever he thinks Steve’s name is “good.” But it’s laced with an ache now, a terrible, gut-tearing ache that rivals anything that’s ever been done to him.

He’s brought to base. Interviewed. They want to know where he’s been. Why he went rogue, off the grid.

The soldier pretends he knows nothing. Answers that he has no memory of his time since his last mission.

It’s the first time he’s ever lied to his handlers.

He won’t give them Steve. Not this time. Not even when they attempt to “recondition” his mind. It’s painful, but he endures.

They prep him for cryo. Take his clothes, wash him down. He’ll be wiped when he wakes again, not now. For now, he can keep what he has.

He can dream.

As the cold sets in, a flash of blinding pain, then stark numbness, the soldier closes his eyes and digs deep into the memories that have been unearthed. Cold becomes spring warmth, and the darkness of the stasis container is overwritten by lush green grass, a clear blue sky, and a beautiful white house.

A dog barks across the yard, chasing a ball thrown by a small blonde girl who laughs loudly and brightly. The soldier thinks it’s possibly the most beautiful sound he’s ever heard.

“Bucky?”

A familiar voice at his side. The soldier turns, looks down into deep blue eyes, and feels himself smile. “Steve.”

“You with me?” Steve says, chuckling a bit as he reaches up to brush his fingers across the soldier’s cheek. “For a minute you seemed far away.”

“I think maybe I was.”

“You okay?”

“Say my name again.”

“What?” Steve is still smiling, but concern is written all over his face.

“My name. Say it again. Please.”

“Bucky.”

He scoops Steve up into his arms, hugging him tightly. Steve kicks his feet a bit, no longer reaching the ground, but his resistance is all play. The soldier--Bucky--holds him, pressing his face to Steve’s neck, breathing in the scent of him, feeling his pulse against his lips.

Finally, Steve relents, stills, and wraps his arms around Bucky’s neck. “What’s up with you, huh? You’re acting like you haven’t seen me in months.”

“Don’t leave me.”

“Never. Not goin’ anywhere, Buck.” He presses a kiss to Bucky’s head.

“I think I had a nightmare.”

“Standing here in the yard?”

“Yes.”

Steve held him tighter. “Maybe you should go inside and lay down.”

“No, I wanna stay right here. With you. We can, can’t we? Stay here?”

“Of course. That was the deal when I said, ‘yes’ remember?”

_“Marry me.”_

Bucky pulled his head up, looked out over the yard--their daughter playing with the dog, and their picture perfect house, set out in the country where the air was kinder to Steve’s lungs. He looked back at Steve, and smiled before kissing him, hard and full of passion and conviction.

“Yes,” he said, when they finally both came up for air. “Yes. I remember.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, there are cookies and Bucky Bears for those who need them. 
> 
> I've recently decided that my other fic [No One Needs To Know](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4330026) is a part of this universe, on account of the fact that I kept referencing it in my head while I wrote this one. So...if you're looking for some more Winter Soldier angst. . . Enjoy!!
> 
> I'm on Tumblr as [Minako1x2"](www.tumblr.com/minako1x2) if you'd like to come say hi!!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some days, most days, most nights, Steve almost pinches himself. But he never does. Never goes through with it. Because if this isn’t real--if it isn’t--then he doesn’t ever want to wake up. 
> 
> He’s a greedy and selfish man. Always has been. In the thirties he’d wanted things he couldn’t have, taken things he shouldn’t have, things that should never have been offered to him, but oh how he wanted it. Wanted to feel. Wanted him. Even if only in the dark, only in the shadows, only for a moment. Then the train had come, and the snow, and the plane, and the ice, and seventy years of cold slumber that left his mind numb and broken, but no less wanting. 
> 
> Steve Rogers had awoke in the Twenty-first Century still mourning Bucky Barnes, still missing him, still needing him, still wanting him. 
> 
> Those first two years had been agony.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...since I got married last month I was in the mood for some Marry Me shmoop.  
> So I started this.
> 
> Then the Civil War trailer hit--and then I finished it.
> 
> So here is your shmoop, my lovelies. Enjoy.

It glints in the light. A tiny spark, a small star graced in the bright moonlight that pours in through the open window. Steve can’t stop staring at it. Hasn’t stopped, not since they’d collapsed together in their bed, and Bucky’s breathing had slowed and evened out with sleep, his head pillowed on Steve’s chest.

It’s there. It’s a real thing. A real, physical, honest-to-god thing, and they have paperwork, and a license, and witnesses, and--

It’s real.

They did it.

Some days, most days, most _nights_ , Steve almost pinches himself. But he never does. Never goes through with it. Because if this isn’t real--if it isn’t--then he doesn’t ever want to wake up.

He’s a greedy and selfish man. Always has been. In the thirties he’d wanted things he couldn’t have, taken things he shouldn’t have, things that should never have been offered to him, but oh how he wanted it. Wanted to _feel_. Wanted _him._ Even if only in the dark, only in the shadows, only for a moment. Then the train had come, and the snow, and the plane, and the ice, and seventy years of cold slumber that left his mind numb and broken, but no less wanting.

Steve Rogers had awoke in the Twenty-first Century still mourning Bucky Barnes, still missing him, still _needing_ him, still _wanting_ him.

Those first two years had been agony.

Then came D.C. and the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the helicarriers, and the Potomac, and Steve hadn’t thought it was possible for a heart to break further and mend all at once. When he’d woken in the hospital, then later when Natasha had handed him that file . . . Steve had held close all the shattered pieces of his heart, all the pieces that had been falling to his feet as he navigated this strange new century, and somehow they once again all fit, back in place, back where they belonged.

Because Bucky Barnes lived. Bucky Barnes was still alive.

He’d seen it. He knew it.

_Bucky_ knew _him_.

And it took time, of course, two years of searching, of “cold leads” and gentle lectures from friends who meant well, but couldn’t possibly understand, not completely, what it meant to find your heart hadn’t been lost in that ravine, that it had, in fact, been frozen somewhere else, kept and abused and mistreated, but kept, and once again thawed out just as your body had been. Steve didn’t hold it against them. How could he? Besides, it hadn’t mattered, because Bucky was within reach. And that was everything. Everything.

Two years, and then weeks upon months of rebuilding, of rediscovery. Of paintings that told stories Steve couldn’t quite share, of sketches and secret longings while he waited for that mind he loved and treasured more than his own to stitch itself back together.

_“Marry me,” he’d said._

Steve had only ever had one answer to that question.

And now . . .

He runs his thumb along the metal, spinning it against his finger, relishing and marveling at the smooth perfection of it.

Bucky shifts against his chest. “You’re gonna wear it down to nothin’ you keep doing that,” he mumbles, his voice thick with sleep.

“You had it made with vibrainium,” Steve says, rolling his eyes, but stopping nonetheless. “I think if my shield has survived, the ring will too.”

“Had to make sure,” Bucky says, stretching, then kissing the flesh beneath his lips. “Don’t want it melting away, or breaking off, or getting crushed and taking your finger with it. Want everyone to know. See it, and know.”

“Possessive much?”

Bucky just snorts.

Steve turns his hand in the moonlight, still unable to look away.

“Steve.”

“Yeah?”

“What’re you doin’?” He reaches up, folding their hands together, flesh to flesh, pulling Steve’s hand down to kiss the back of his knuckles through a smile.

The feel of Bucky’s lips against his hand, against any part of him, has always been enough to make Steve sigh blissfully. “What do you mean?”

Bucky taps the ring, twice. Simple.

“I just--” How to explain it without sounding stupid? Steve’s words catch in his throat, stuck there, as if letting them out will burst the bubble that keeps everything safe, everything _real_. “It’s just . . . sometimes I can’t believe it. We did it. Actually did it.”

At that, Bucky shifts, lifting himself up on that metal arm, his flesh hand still entwined with Steve’s. Their matching rings clinking together. “Of course we did. Said we were gonna, all the way back in ’44. You didn’t think I was all talk, did you?”

“It was all talk back then, Buck.”

Bucky’s kissing him. Hard and passionate, and deep enough that Steve can feel it in his toes. It’s a wonder he ever survived without this man, without this air in his lungs. Bucky only pulls back when Steve is completely breathless. “Wasn’t all talk. Never. Not for me. Woulda done it in a heartbeat. Did do it.”

“Cause we can now.”

“Yes, we can. And we did. And I’ll do it again if you want me to, any time. Name the place.”

Steve runs his free hand along Bucky’s side, feeling the muscle there, the familiar lines that he used to draw on scrap paper with half-broken pencils. He smiles. “I know. I love you.”

“Sap.” He says that, but Bucky kisses him again. “But seriously, you okay?”

“Just . . . Sometimes . . . --We’re married, Buck.”

“Yeah.” Bucky chuckles. “For a month now.”

“I know. It just--I feel . . . Do you feel different?”

Bucky flops back down, his head once more atop Steve’s heart. “Always felt married to you. Just got paper and a ring now to prove it.”

“Did you ever think . . .?”

“Yes. Told you. Wasn’t all talk.”

“And just how did you plan on marrying me back in ’44?”

“Like this.” He sits up again, this time taking Steve’s face in his hands, one warm, one cool. “Steven Grant Rogers, I take you to be my unlawfully wedded husband--”

Steve’s laughing before he can even finish, surging upwards until his mouth meets Bucky’s swallowing the rest of his vows and taking them into himself.

They end in a sweaty heap once again, this time Steve resting against Bucky’s chest, listening to the steady beat of that heart that kept them both alive. He holds tight, swearing to himself that he will never let go. Not ever again. He never, ever, wants to be further from this man than he is right now, right in this moment.

Bucky plays his metal fingers up and down along Steve’s spine, warm now, after all the activity. “Come on, Rogers. Your turn. Say it.”

“Say what?”

“Same as me. Come on. Do it. Marry me. Again. Nineteen-forties style.”

Steve can’t see the smirk, but he can sure as hell hear it. He presses his face into his husband’s chest. His _husband’s._ How did he ever end up so lucky? How? What did he--a scrawny, scrappy, mouthy, wheezing punk of a kid--ever do to deserve all this?

“I’m waiting,” Bucky says, giving a gentle tug to the back of Steve’s neck. “Come on, Stevie. Marry me.”

“Every day,” Steve says, sliding his way up Bucky’s body until he can say the words into the pulse at his throat. “Every day. James Buchanan Barnes, I take you to be my unlawfully wedded husband.”

It wasn’t true. Their marriage was lawful in every way, in every sense of the word. Now. But Steve said it anyway. Said it for those two kids, bent together on that ragged and worn out couch, staring war and death in the face and demanding something more.

_“Marry me,”_ Bucky had said. _“S’just you and me.”_

Always. Always Steve and Bucky. Bucky and Steve.

Bucky twines their fingers together once more, right and left, flesh and flesh, ring to ring, and he whispers in the dark, pulling that precious word from so long ago into the future with them--

“Yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay! Happy Ending for Marry Me. ^_^
> 
> I don't think there will be any more chapters for this one. Feels pretty good to me as is now.   
> But you never know..... ^_~
> 
> And remember! I'm always open for prompts! Send in the comments here or on Tumblr! Minako1x2

**Author's Note:**

> ::offers plate of cookies and sofa full of bucky bears::
> 
>  
> 
> Come say hi on [Tumblr](http://www.minako1x2.tumblr.com) ! Send more prompts! I love prompts. ^_^


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